Dirty Little Secret
by Unoriginality
Summary: A trip to an old Hydra base stirs up a lot of bad memories and Bucky's friends don't know how to help him. (Winter Soldier spoilers. Also, Tony!)


"I didn't know who else to go to," Steve said, watching as Tony Stark examined Bucky's busted arm. "It got beat up when we were in Kiev. That stuff's way beyond me, and we can't exactly go back to Hydra for help."

Bucky stayed very still except to turn his head and watch the famous (or infamous, depending on who you were) Tony Stark examine his arm.

"You're not exactly known for your technical prowess," Tony said. "JARVIS, give me a schematic, lemme see what I'm working with."

"Yes, sir," the computerized voice said. Bucky looked at Steve questioningly, communicating silently like he usually did in unfamiliar company. He didn't know who this JARVIS was, or where that voice was coming from. He assumed a computer, but this sounded like a more advanced computer than he was used to dealing with.

"JARVIS is Tony's self-built AI," Steve explained. "It's a computer, but sometimes I think it's got a personality and individual thought."

"Ha!" Tony manipulated the 3D image JARVIS had created of Bucky's arm. "I definitely made him too sarcastic," he said.

"I am what I am programmed," JARVIS said, and Bucky could suddenly see why Tony said he was a bit too sarcastic. He was pretty sure he heard a "so there" hiding in there somewhere.

Tony wheeled his chair over next to Bucky, still playing with the holographic image of Bucky's arm. "JARVIS, what do you think?"

"The technology is unfamiliar to me, sir. But it seems like something that is not beyond our level."

"Good," Tony dismissed the image.

Bucky glanced up at wherever JARVIS's voice was coming from. He was moderately surprised to hear that. Hydra tended to have far and away better tech than any other agency in the world. But then, Tony Stark was hardly an agency. So who knew.

Tony grabbed some tools, many of them familiar to Bucky by sight, but dust if he knew what they were called. Engineering wasn't his line of work. Give him any weapon in the world and he'd know how to use it, but engineering wasn't something he studied much.

"Tell me if this hurts," Tony said, starting to poke around at the exposed wiring and miniature computers that ran the arm.

Bucky stayed silent, not feeling anything, until Tony poked at a certain spot and Bucky's arm jerked out, sending Tony and his chair wheeling across the floor. Bucky gave Tony as contrite a look as he ever gave people he wasn't terribly familiar with. "You hit a nerve," he said, trying and failing to sound apologetic, sounding flatter in his ears than he'd intended.

Tony gave him a look that was equally flat. "So I see." He wheeled back over. "That wire's exposed, I'll probably have to replace it. Probably explains why it made the arm react. Have you ever had that happen before?"

"Once or twice," Bucky admitted. "I usually get guns pointed at me when it happens."

Tony made a face. "Don't worry, my company doesn't make those anymore. JARVIS, print me a replacement. Also components three and six, those look fried as well." Tony looked at Bucky. "What the hell did you do to this poor piece of technology?"

"Tried to catch an RPG," Bucky said.

Tony sighed, giving Bucky a stern stare. "You'll make Cap's heart go bad if you keep doing things like that."

"I've done it before," Bucky protested a bit half-heartedly. "The operative word was 'tried'. I didn't see that one coming until it was too late."

Steve grimaced. "Neither of us did. But if he hadn't taken that hit, both of us would probably be in the hospital right now."

"Just the hospital?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "I know you can take some tumbles most people can't, but you could survive that?"

"I've survived worse," Steve said. "And so has Bucky."

Tony shook his head, going back to work on Bucky's arm. "Human experimentation. Can't say I approve. But it keeps you two alive, so I suppose I can make an exception or two. JARVIS, you got my parts?"

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.

Tony put his tools down and wheeled over to the 3D printer and examined the pieces JARVIS had produced from it. "Looks right. Okay. JARVIS, give me some background music."

Bucky had a split second warning from the look on Steve's face before hard rock blasted from that same not-there speaker that JARVIS spoke from. He sank in his seat, looking up at Steve for pity. Steve had a long-suffering look on his face.

"Please come into the modern world, you two fogeys," Tony said over the music as he worked. "Modern people don't do that big band stuff from your days."

"I don't mind modern music, Tony," Steve said. "But your brand of it is special with sparkles."

"Says the man who runs around in a spangly uniform."

Bucky bit back a laugh at that, just giving Steve a raised eyebrow, challenging him to argue. Steve glared at Bucky. "Be on my side, Buck." Bucky just gave him a bland smile. "Jerk."

"Such language," Tony said without looking up from his work. "I'm scandalized, Cap."

"I'll give you scandalized," Steve growled, glaring up at the ceiling, then around the room, clearly looking for the source of that music. If he wanted to punch the speaker and make it stop working, Bucky would probably cheer him on.

"So what were you two doing in Kiev?" Tony asked.

"Tracking down an old Hydra base," Steve said. "Just making sure that it wasn't still active. Personal mission, not anything we were paid for."

Tony made a noise of acknowledgment, then glanced over at Steve. "And let me guess, Hydra was waiting."

Steve shook his head. "We never got to the base. Russian rebels who are trying to take over the Ukraine caught us and decided they didn't like us. If Bucky's arm hadn't taken that hit, we probably would still be over there."

"Getting yourself killed," Tony said. "Then who would I heckle?"

There was that long-suffering look again. Steve had it perfected. "Bruce?"

"Naw." Tony switched out tools, and Bucky felt a strange feedback into his chest where wire hooked up to raw nerves, but it didn't cause his arm to lash out like that first feedback, so he grit his teeth and sat through it. "I like Bruce, but you're more fun to pick on. You get so prickly."

"That's because he's a prick," Bucky said without thinking.

Steve pointed a finger at him. "Bucky, I will do horrible things to you on purpose if you don't start being on my side."

Tony paused, laughing. "Okay, children, I'll sit you on opposite ends of the room if you distract me more than you already have." Steve shot him a sour look that probably wasn't seen, as Tony quickly went back to work. "How old is this arm?"

Bucky thought for a second. "I got it in '45," he said. "So almost seventy years."

"And they had this tech back then?" Tony gave an impressed whistle. "Hydra just keeps throwing surprises at us. But either they decided to never upgrade this thing, or their tech stagnated for seven decades, because this feels like child's play to get through these components. Dummy, get the diagnostic cables, I want to clear out any programming gunk, see if they tried to update the function without rebuilding the arm."

The robot that responded knocked over a few things in the process of grabbing some cables. Tony sighed. "If you didn't prove so helpful sometimes, I'd tear you down for parts," he grumbled at Dummy. The robot arm managed to look dejected as it brought the cables over to Tony. "Stop looking at me like that."

Bucky raised an eyebrow, staring at the robot during this exchange, then glanced at Steve. Steve shook his head with a shrug. Good, he was as confused as Bucky was. They could be confused together.

"What did you mean by programming gunk?" Steve asked while Tony hooked up the cables to a computer.

"It's kinda like cleaning house," Tony explained. "If they kept overwriting the computer programmings to keep it functional that long without replacing the hardware entirely, there could be a lot of excess programming that's not needed that could slow down response time and possibly make the arm likely to shut down eventually, especially if the updates aren't continued. This way-" he hooked the cables into Bucky's arm, and there was that strange tingly feeling again "-we can prevent that. Maybe even get it better programming, depending on how recent the lastest reprogram was."

"And better programming means faster reflexes?" Steve asked, and Bucky glanced away from what Tony was doing to look at Steve, who seemed to be following. Bucky looked back at Tony.

"That's the plan," Tony said. "Bucky, let me know if it starts setting off too much in the shoulder girdle where the arm hooks up."

Bucky frowned. "What do you mean, setting off?"

Tony didn't look away from his computer that he was now typing away at, watching information scroll by way too quickly for him to be actually reading it. "Numbness, tingling, any sort of negative feedback. Shouldn't be any pain, though, unless they installed malware as a safeguard against you turning on them. Which is entirely possible, but I don't think it would've been in their best interest to possibly handicap their best weapon. But then, Hydra thought that taking Captain America's best friend hostage was a good idea, so we can't always guarantee their intelligence."

Bucky shook his head. "They wouldn't do that," he said. "If they were worried about me going out of control, they would've programmed the safeguard into my head, not my arm."

"That's what I'm thinking," Tony agreed. "If necessary, I can get Bruce out here to help me take a look into your brainpan to make sure there's not a trigger in there. But that might take awhile. We'll hold off on that for now." He scrolled through the programming on the screen, his hand pushing whole pages by. "Huh."

"I hate it when you scientist types say that," Steve said. "It usually means something's wrong."

Tony frowned. "Hydra must've installed a control key. If they had the correctly programmed remote, they could shut down the arm or take over it. Might've made it harder for our brainwashed friend here to take them out if he decided to." He looked over at Bucky. "Who would've held that remote?"

"Pierce," Bucky said without hesitation. "He was in charge of me for about fifty years."

"Hm." Tony tapped at his computer. "I'm going to see if I can't remove that. I don't care if the man with the red button is dead, the last thing you need is finding someone with the back up red button. Please try to not hit me this time if it hurts."

Bucky clenched his fist on the arm of the chair his metal arm was resting on, watching Tony's screen. "What's the difference between a control key and that malware you mentioned?"

Tony didn't answer right away, tapping away at the clear keyboard that lit up after a command was pushed on the touchscreen. Finally, he paused and looked over at Bucky briefly before going back to the computer. "Both will shut down the arm, but malware will only fry the computers, they wouldn't have used that except in a dire emergency, if they weren't inclined to rebuild it from scratch. A control key would've simply turned off the computers, like holding down a power key. The arm could be rebooted when they regained control over you."

Steve walked over closer to Bucky's chair, looking over Tony's shoulder. "Is there anything else hiding in there?" he asked.

Tony took a deep breath. "Spangles, I'm still trying to remove the control key. I think you want all of my attention on that right now. JARVIS, find me the passcode on this, run diagnostics."

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, and then less than a minute later, Tony's screen changed colors, but at Bucky's angle to it, he couldn't see what had gone up on the monitor. "There are you, sir. It seems the remote functioned on early seventies' laser technology, which was, if I may, sadly lacking. It should pose no difficulty removing it."

"JARVIS, you're a peach," Tony said with a smile, then stopped typing and glanced at Bucky. "Any feedback yet?"

"You know that feeling in your teeth you get when someone scratches a chalkboard?" Bucky replied.

Tony winced. "Hate that feeling. All along the port?"

Bucky nodded.

"That should go away in a minute here. The computer's deactivating and removing that control key. Then we'll go back to watching for excess programming. If you want to be my guinea pig, and I mean that only in the best way possible, I can try writing a brand new program to get anything else Hydra might've hidden in there out."

Bucky's first reaction was to tell Tony to screw off on that suggestion, but logic told him that Tony actually had Bucky's best interests at heart, if only because of his friendship with Steve. He sighed. "Fine."

"Sir, my analysis shows that the control key has been overridden and deleted," JARVIS said.

"Excellent." Tony went back to scrolling the screen. "Let's take a look at the rest of the programming." Then he looked at Bucky. "Don't worry, my method of experimenting doesn't involve needles and painful machines. You might still have that jangly nerve feeling while I'm working, though. Which I know, just thrills you to death, but it might be worth it."

"Reprogram it," Bucky said.

"You got it, Chatty Cathy."

Minutes ticked by, the music still playing but Tony's tapping audible over it. Bucky became alarmed when he started feeling absolutely no response from his arm. Before Bucky could do more than give Tony a hostile look, Tony raised a hand, shushing him. "I'm removing Hydra's programming," he said. "You'll get response again as soon as I'm done replacing it, and I dare say it'll behave better."

It still made Bucky uncomfortable, so he took deep, steadying breaths and watched Tony like a hawk, wishing he could see that screen from his angle.

After a minute of no response and Bucky mentally drilling a hole in Tony's head with his hard stare, Tony stopped and gave him an impatient look. "You know, it's very hard to concentrate when you're trying to kill me with looks alone. Relax and talk to Cap or something."

"Tony knows what he's doing," Steve said. "He's not always this good with explaining without losing his non-sciencey audience, but he's good at this."

"You did all right with the relays on the helicarrier when Loki's mercs attacked," Tony said. "For someone who looked at it and said it runs on some kind of electricity, you caught on quick."

"I had a good teacher," Steve said.

Tony looked like he was fighting back an amused smile and only succeeding because he had computery stuff to keep his focus on. "Bucky, tell me, is he always this sentimental?" Bucky just gave him a tired look and nodded slowly. Tony sighed theatrically. "Cap, you redefine 'good guy' and you've really got to quit that. We sarcastic philanthropists look like misathropes with you running around."

"I blame the serum," Steve said, turning red. "It enhances personality, too."

"Don't blame the serum," Bucky said. "You were just as bad before it."

Steve looked ready to protest until Bucky gave him a look that promised Story Time to prove his point if Steve disagreed. "You have no room to talk," he finally said.

"You two remind me of a bickering old married couple," Tony said. "Just don't start making kissy face until I'm done here."

"Tony? Shut up," Steve said. "Bucky can get away with that joke, you can't."

Tony looked over at Bucky. "Is this true?"

Bucky resisted the urge to laugh at Steve's expense as the man in question tried to make a few blustery protests. "I keep expecting him to propose," Bucky said. "But he's been like that as long as I've known him."

"Which is a damn long time," Tony said, going back to his computer. "Here, we're almost done. Are you feeling anything?"

Bucky tried to flex his fingers, and they didn't quite make a fist like he wanted, but they curled into a half-assed one. "Vaguely."

"Give me another minute, some of these computers need fine tuning. It'd be best if I could just detach the arm and give it a full overhaul, if not replace it entirely, but that'd be a big surgery and I really would have to call Bruce in, and it'd take awhile. You two get too much trouble for you to be down that long." Bucky began to feel more feedback from his arm as the new programming was installed. Tony didn't stop typing, nor did he look away, but he did speak up. "I assume you're going back to Kiev for that Hydra base once we're done here?"

Bucky and Steve exchanged a look before both turned their attention back to Tony. "Probably," Steve said. "It's one of the few we know about that might be still active. If it's not, we can possibly find information about other locations. Hunting down Hydra's a hobby of ours when we're between jobs."

"Don't you two know how to take a vacation?" Tony demanded.

"We tried. Got interrupted by a bank robbery," Steve said. "Bucky was cranky about the police not liking our way of handling it." Bucky just gave him a grumpy look.

Tony shook his head. "You can't even go on vacation right. There." He swiveled his seat to face Bucky. "How's that?"

Bucky gave his arm a few experimental flexes, feeling it respond again, which took a bit of weight off his shoulders. He never liked not being able to feel that arm. But the servos whining was quieter and the whole thing felt better than it had before. "It works."

Tony sat back with a smug smile. "Told you I was better than Hydra. Now, speaking of Hydra. Think you two can hold off on your personal grudge for a week, stick around here?"

"We could, I guess," Steve said, answering for the both of them. "Why?"

"Pepper's given me permission to make another Iron Man suit after I blew up marks seventeen through eighty million," Tony said. "Give me a week to finish making a new one with all the great toys, and I'll come with."

"Tony, you don't have to-"

"I know," Tony interrupted. "But two things. One, I just repaired that arm, I don't want you two coming back with it all messed up again. I value tech too much for that. For another, if you die, I may have to just cry and nobody wants to see that. Me crying is just a sobby, snot-filled, red-eyed mess. I'm not a pretty crier. So let me come with. Besides, I want Hydra's information. You've said yourself that SHIELD didn't have everything, that means there's more out there. Neither of you two would know how to upload that stuff and start reducing how many places Hydra has to hide. Their motto is 'cut off one head, two more shall take its place', right? With a hydra, you don't go after the heads, that just causes too many more to show up. Go for the body. We want to cut off the root, not the heads. That means chasing them down rat holes so deep they never find their way out again."

Steve looked at Bucky. Bucky shrugged; he didn't much care if Iron Man wanted to throw his hat into that ring, anything to get rid of Hydra. Steve nodded once in acknowledgement of Bucky's silent answer and turned back to Tony. "Okay, we'll stick around. Should we get Bruce in on anything?"

Tony shook his head. "No. His areas of expertise focus more on medicine and radi-" He cut himself off, staring at the wall, then frowned and looked at Bucky. "Do you know if there's a base under Chernobyl? It would've had to have been there before the reactors blew, but if there's one there, it's currently in the safest spot in the world."

"I don't-" Bucky stopped and made himself think, but anything before that last mindwipe that was after the fall from the train was still hazy. "No, I don't think so. I only know of the one base in Ukraine."

"I'll bet they wish they had one now," Steve said.

Tony waved it off. "Just a thought. So, Kiev. Lovely place this time of year. Why start there?"

"Because it's the only one I know about that wasn't taken down by Black Widow and Steve," Bucky said.

"Good reason." Tony sat forward. "Go upstairs and harass Pepper for awhile. I need to get to work on the suit if I'm joining you. JARVIS, let's get to work."

"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.

Bucky stood and pulled his shirt back on, noticing a remarkable difference in his arm's response. It wasn't any faster, his arm could only react as fast as his brain did, but the movements felt smoother and it was quieter than it had been before. He wasn't sure what programming Tony put in, but it was definitely miles ahead of what Hydra had in there, and he felt a bit more comfortable knowing there was now no way for Hydra to handicap him except the old fashioned way. Underhanded methods were Hydra's preferred SOP. Removing them forced Hydra to work on a level playing field.

Bucky usually won on a level playing field, and made a mess in the process. Sometimes he felt a bit guilty for leaving behind a path of destruction a mile wide, but when it came to Hydra, he had a real hard time feeling bad about anything he did.

Bucky followed Steve up the stairs to the main level. From news accounts, Tony hadn't rebuilt his original home over in Malibu that got leveled by a terrorist attack, but the new house further up the coast didn't look terribly different from pictures of the old one. Bucky had a feeling the new Iron Man suit wouldn't look much different from any of its former versions, either. Tony was a genius, but apparently artistic asthetics weren't his area of expertise. Bucky was willing to bet the decor was largely attributed to a professional, or possibly Pepper Potts.

"Pepper?" Steve called, looking around the main room. "JARVIS, I know you're busy, but could you tell us where Pepper is?"

"She's in the kitchen, Captain," JARVIS said, and Bucky thought he did sound a little distracted. "To your right."

"Thanks." 'To the right' wasn't terribly descriptive, but it was good enough to get them from the living room overlooking the shoreline to the kitchen where a woman was peeling an apple. "Pepper?"

The woman jumped, nearly dropping her apple. "Oh god. Don't scare me like that! Hello, Steve."

Steve gave her one of those boyish grins that Bucky had never figured out how it hadn't made ladies weak in the knees. Meh, most women were too shallow, that smile only seemed to work now that he wasn't a scrawny, sickly little guy. "Hey, Pepper. Tony shoved us up here. He wants to join us in Kiev. Says you gave him permission to build a new suit."

Pepper shook her head. "He went nuts for awhile with them after New York. That really shook him up. But he's been seeing a therapist and was on medicine for awhile, so I don't worry that one of his suits is going to randomly come to life and attack us because of his stress." She set her apple down on the counter and looked at Bucky. "You're here with Steve with a metal arm that Tony had to repair, so I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you're Steve's partner, the Winter Soldier. Am I right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Just Pepper," she said, holding out her hand to him. "Is there anything else I can call you, or do you prefer Winter?"

Bucky took her hand. "Bucky's fine," he said.

"Well, welcome to the crazy, Bucky," she said, turning back to finish peeling her apple. "Just wait until there's another attack on New York, you'll be pulled in with the other Avengers."

Steve laughed. "The Avengers Initiative was a SHIELD program," he said. "We all know what we think of SHIELD now."

Pepper pointed her peeler at Steve. "Yes, but that won't stop you guys from closing ranks with each other if something happens again. Deny it, Steve."

"I'm not going to," he said. "You're probably very right on that count."

"So, Kiev." Pepper tossed the peel in the trash and the peeler into the sink before getting out an apple corer. "What's in Kiev that has Tony willing to come out of retirement?"

"An old Hydra base," Steve said, sticking his hands in his pockets. "We're hoping it's abandoned so we can datamine it for everything it's worth. Then take off and nuke the site from orbit."

Pepper laughed. "When did you see Aliens?"

Steve shook his head. "I haven't, I just picked up the joke on the internet."

"Careful with that internet, you find some pretty skeevy stuff on there," Pepper warned, then held out the plate with the sliced apples. "Apple slice?"

"Bucky's already shown me the worst," Steve said. "Thank you." He took a slice.

Bucky shook his head when Pepper held the plate to him. "That wasn't the worst, Steve."

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "What, you showed him goatse?"

"I don't know what that is and please do not enlighten me," Bucky said. "I was talking about RPS."

Pepper paused mid-bite on an apple slice, face red with the effort to not laugh and choke on her food. "Tony's been subject to that stuff for years. Welcome to the modern age, Steve."

Steve gave her a sour look. "I could've done without that part," he said.

"You're so cute," Pepper said, crinkling her nose at him. "Come on, we'll go sit in the living room. Gotta be more comfortable than standing in the kitchen." She walked past them, leading them back into the living room. "So are you two staying with us while Tony plays with his toys?"

"I guess?" Steve said, taking a seat once Pepper was sitting. Bucky took a seat next to him, keeping mostly quiet during the conversation. He didn't really know Pepper except by reputation, and he wasn't very good with basic socialization anymore. He knew how to, but he didn't feel comfortable doing it.

"Well, good," Pepper said, setting her plate on the coffee table. "Hotels around here are expensive, there's no reason you should have to stay in one when you have willing hosts here. Did Tony say how long it'd be before you could take off?"

"He said a week."

Pepper made a rude sound. "He's underestimating himself. He'll need two days to build it, a day to sleep because he won't while working, then you'll be on your way to Kiev on a former SHIELD plane that he'll steal from some military base and revamp from whatever the military's done to it."

"Does he know how to fly one of those things?" Steve asked.

Pepper shook her head. "Not to my knowledge."

"Good thing Bucky knows how to, then," Steve said, glancing over at Bucky.

"You trained under SHIELD?" Pepper asked.

It was an honest question, but Bucky wasn't sure how much he wanted to answer. "In a manner of speaking."

"So you're already well-versed in crazy."

There was an understatement that Bucky wasn't going to overthink too much. "You could say that."

Pepper tilted her head to the side, a mild look on her face that seemed to be equal parts curiosity, frustration and determination wrapped up in one furrowed brow and one half-there smile. "You don't talk much, do you?"

"Not really."

"He's a magpie when it's just the two of us," Steve said. "I like being around other people. Makes him shut up for awhile."

Bucky reached over with his flesh fist and slugged Steve on the shoulder. "Punk."

"Jerk."

Pepper looked between them. "This is an old exchange."

"You have no idea," Steve said.

As Pepper predicted, Tony didn't come up from that room for two days, not even for meals. Occasionally, Pepper went down with some food, but neither Bucky nor Steve saw him in that time. Pepper was a gracious hostess, talking mostly with Steve and letting Bucky quietly observe his surroundings. The place was a security nightmare; large windows making up an entire wall of the living room, breakables and valuables on display with no regards for possible theft. He imagined the locks on the doors were fantastic, and JARVIS was everywhere in that house, quite literally, and who knew what else Tony might have hiding around, but from the surface, without knowing Tony and how his mind worked, the place would make anyone with a healthy dose of paranoia sleep very uncomfortably.

Bucky had more than what was probably healthy.

Pepper had apologized profusely for making them share a room; "We don't exactly have a lot of guests come around, so we only have one guest room," she'd said.

Steve had dismissed her concerns, pointing out that he and Bucky shared a very small apartment, they were used to close proximity. If discretion was the better part of valor, Steve was bursting with valor as he refrained from mentioning that despite the fact that they lived in a two bedroom, they bunked in the same room. They understood each other on the issue, but the outside world might not. And quite frankly, it was nobody else's business.

However, there was one tiny problem with rooming together at the Stark-Potts house. There was only one bed in the room. It was a king, they could probably share it and never know the other was there, each on his own side, but while that was all fine and good as children or the field, even Bucky felt a bit awkward about the idea in this specific situation.

"You take the bed," Steve said once they'd been shown to their room for the night. "I got the floor."

"The hell you do," Bucky snapped. "You've been sleeping in beds longer than I have, you're more used to it. I'll take the floor."

Steve looked at him. "Bucky? If you argue with me, we're either going to end up both on the floor, or I'll be trying to avoid getting kicked and you'll be trying to keep me from stealing the covers like when we were kids."

Bucky glared at him. "I don't kick in my sleep, and you're sleeping on the bed, I got the floor, and if you argue with me, I'll skip compromise and go straight to kicking your ass until you cry uncle."

Looking back at the bed, Steve let out an explosive breath. "I can see this is going to be an argument. And yes, you do too kick in your sleep. I used to get bruises on my legs from you kicking me."

"When we were kids," Bucky protested. "And yes, this is going to be an argument, because I haven't shared a bed with anyone since we bunked our bedrolls right next to each other in Germany, and that hardly counts. I'm not sure I could sleep comfortably in a bed with someone else, and unless you had guests I don't know about before I came home, I doubt you could, either. So one of us gets the bed, the other gets the floor, and I'm volunteering for the floor."

"Got an idea," Steve said after a moment of silence. "We'll be here at least two nights. We'll switch. First night, I'll take the floor and you take the bed. Second night, you take the floor and I'll have the bed. Fair?"

Bucky didn't want to agree at first, mostly out of stubbornness, but Bucky just didn't feel right sleeping on the bed while Steve slept on the floor. But Steve made a fair compromise, and Bucky had a feeling he'd end up in the bed both nights if he tried arguing further, because if he was really honest, not only would he do anything for Steve, Steve was now also able to arm wrestle him into submission on the issue. "Fine."

Which was the end of that argument.

Tony emerged after night two with a red and gold suitcase in one hand and a regular one in the other. "Okay, boys, let's get going," he said, reaching the living room where Bucky and Steve were watching news reports on the television with Pepper.

She waved a hand at Tony. "Told you. Now go have fun stealing that SHIELD plane you're going to take to the Ukraine."

Tony pointed at her. "Correction, Miss Potts, the plane's already stolen, upgraded and sitting at my private airfield."

She sighed. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

Tony smirked, then looked at Steve and Bucky, who were already up and starting to head to their room to grab their respective bags. "Hold off on the uniforms until we're in the air," he said. "Might look too interesting to the press if Tony Stark's driving around town with the Winter Soldier and Captain America. We'll suit up once we're in the Ukraine."

"Good idea," Steve agreed, pausing behind Bucky who didn't really care much what Tony might have to say to interrupt them from getting moving. He had to admit it was a good idea, though. To himself, anyway.

They hadn't really unpacked, never did when they went somewhere, so it was less of a matter of repacking and more of a matter of just grabbing their bags and heading out.

Bucky stayed silent in the backseat of the car while Steve and Tony chatted up front. He didn't pay them much mind, they weren't saying anything relevant, just friends having a conversation in a car, so Bucky studied the passing scenery with increasing boredom. Normally, with boredom came crankiness, but the farther they traveled, the more Bucky's stomach tied into knots.

If he were brutally honest, he didn't want to go to Kiev. That place was one of the few places in the world that scared him. That Hydra base was where Bucky Barnes had died and the Winter Soldier had been born. Steve knew, had known before Bucky showed up on his doorstep, having Bucky's Hydra file from Romanoff. But that was only the paper copy. Neither had any idea if there were any other copies in that base, and if there were, they would, as Steve had put it a few days ago, nuke the site from orbit.

Actually, Bucky would probably just plant explosives in strategic support locations and blow the place to hell, but that was splitting hairs at that point. He might even do just that even if there weren't any records to hide. It'd probably be cathartic.

"So tell me," Tony said as they reached his private airstrip. He put the car in park by a hangar. "Which of you senior citizens are good at flying these things?"

"Bucky can fly, but he's not a seni-"

"Please," Tony said before Steve could finish his sentence. "Don't lie to me, Cap, it doesn't suit you. You forget, my father worked with all of you and your Howling Commandos. He told me about more than just the serum, I knew who Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers were before I could ride a bike. You can't honestly expect me to believe that a completely unrelated Bucky came along and partnered up with you and this isn't strange? I don't know the hows or whys, and they're probably not my business, but I'll bet it has something to do with Kiev. At least be honest with me about why we're investigating a probably-defunct Hydra base. I have no problem helping, just be honest with me."

Steve looked at Bucky, who only flicked a glance at Tony, then stared at Steve. Maybe they could trick the public at large by simply hiding Bucky behind his mask, but Tony made a point, several, actually. They turned to him in good faith as friends, they could be honest with a friend, especially one who was helping them in a potentially life-threatening way.

Steve took Bucky's silence the way Bucky intended, and looked at Tony. "Come on, let's get on the plane first," he said.

Tony seemed placated by that for the moment, leading them into the hangar. It took several security points to even open the door, and Bucky was impressed by them. SHIELD wasn't even that paranoid half the time.

Knowing he'd been volunteered as pilot and that he much preferred Steve explain to Tony what was going on than trying to do it himself, Bucky just deposited his bag and took to the pilot's seat. Once they were safely up in the air, Tony seated next to Bucky for some reason Bucky couldn't fathom and Steve resting his elbows on their seats, Tony half turned to look at Steve and Bucky both. "Okay, out with it," he said.

"Bucky's unit was captured in 1943," Steve said. "They experimented on him. Bucky won't tell me what they did-"

"I don't remember," Bucky said, which was a lie he'd be telling until the day he died.

"-but whatever it was, it was the reason he survived the fall. Hydra found him, took him in, started doing more experiments, until he had no knowledge of anything beyond them. They turned him into their personal assassin for a long time. It wasn't until he was assigned to kill me that he started remembering anything past their garbage."

If only it'd been that simple, but Bucky and Steve didn't talk much to each other, much less others, about that last attempt by the Winter Soldier to kill Captain America.

Tony nodded a couple times, a thoughtful look on his face. "So what does Kiev have to do with it? I mean, I get the grudge against Hydra, but something tells me this place isn't just because it's Hydra and you don't claim to remember any others."

Bucky glanced at him with a cold assassin's stare. It usually unnerved anyone who was around him for more than a minute, even Pierce had his moments of discomfort around that look. Tony didn't seem fazed, though. Giving up, Bucky turned his attention back to the skies. "Kiev is where they took me after they found me by the mountain."

"So that's where they created you. Okay, understanding why we have a mad on for this particular place. Thank you, gentlemen, that's all I ask for. And before you start to regret it, I know how to keep secrets. I have absolutely no idea how you've managed to trick everyone else so long, but I'll leave that to you to do. Nobody's finding out from me. Captain America and Iron Man have been known to work together, it wouldn't be unusual for me to join the two of you from time to time. So nobody's going to come knocking at my door except to ask for autograph opportunities." He pointed to Steve. "And you really ought to consider giving some from time to time. It makes people happy."

"I don't like being famous," Steve said. "I'm a soldier, even if I don't serve a military anymore. I have a job to focus on."

"You sure signed enough as a bonds seller," Tony said.

Bucky allowed himself a tiny smile at that. That time as a bonds performer had given Steve his silly moniker of Captain America and that silly uniform that he grew way too attached to. Bucky hadn't seen much of the footage or paraphernalia back in the day, being out in the field didn't leave much time for leisure, but after coming home, it'd been only a matter of time before Bucky went on the internet and laughed at Steve's expense.

"I didn't have much choice at the time," Steve said.

"Steve?" Bucky didn't look back at his partner as he spoke. "You obviously enjoyed it enough that you kept the uniform and the name."

Steve went quiet, and Bucky took that as a victory. Whenever he rendered Steve speechless meant he'd won the conversation. "You're a jerk, Bucky."

"And you're a punk, what's your point?"

Tony looked between them. "I feel honored, I get to hear the banter. The public doesn't even know if the Winter Soldier can speak or not."

Steve and Bucky exchanged a look. "Bucky gets quiet when he puts on the mask," Steve explained. "It's probably just old conditioning. We speak enough to get the job done."

"Well, that's comforting. If you two knew how to be completely silent all the time, I'd worry that you two had developed telepathy, or possibly just a bromance psibond link type thing that would make me enormously uncomfortable."

Steve looked like he was trying to formulate a reply to that, while Bucky didn't bother to, except to stare at Tony like he'd just started speaking ancient Babylonian for no apparent reason.

Tony held out his hands in a shrug. "What? You two were human lab rats, nothing's impossible."

"The serum wouldn't cause that kind of change," Steve said.

"That serum turned Schmidt into the Red Skull," Tony said, pointing at Steve. "You're right that it's probably been long enough that you won't develop anymore surprise talents at this point, but that doesn't erase the possibility. And at least we know what was put in you." He looked at Bucky. "Do you even know what was all put in you?"

Bucky shook his head. "No," he said. Then he looked up at Steve. "Was it in that file?"

Steve made a 'so-so' motion with his hand. "It named some chemicals, but that doesn't mean I knew what it was saying."

"I could take a look," Tony offered. "I don't suppose you got that file here?"

Steve shook his head. "No, we don't carry it around with us. It's at our apartment. When we get back to the States, we'll hand it over to you. But keep in mind that these were probably new, experimental drugs that only Hydra had, so you might not be able to decipher them."

Tony made a dismissive noise. "Nonsense. Give me time with JARVIS and we'll have it reading like an open book. What else is in there?"

"Machines used for wiping memories," Steve said. "Bucky said those never worked as well as Hydra wanted."

Tony looked at Bucky. "You ever make that known to them?"

"No," Bucky said. "I was amnesiac, not stupid. If those machines weren't working one hundred percent, they'd find something else."

"And that something else might be worse," Tony finished the unspoken part. "Was it just the brainwashing that made you loyal?"

There was something not even Steve had thought of asking, so for a moment, Bucky wasn't sure how to answer. He let his brain tumble over words and memories for a minute while he focused on flying before answering. "They told me that Hydra was out to give the world freedom to justify killing the occasional problem child."

"Hm." Tony sounded interested in that. "So even with chemicals and machines, they still had to appeal to your moral side. Proves that Hydra wasn't as superior as they thought."

Steve snorted. "Is that really what they said? Boy, were they ever twisting the truth around into complicated boy scout knots. Maybe some of them believed that rhetoric, but Zola was pretty honest about simply wanting to take over the world, and Hydra only really grew in SHIELD because of his work."

Zola. Was that ever a name that made Bucky have bad flashbacks to a lot of bad things. He was only glad that after the initial work on him was done, Zola handed him over to Pierce to handle. Zola had no interest in the weapons after they were made. And compared to Zola, Pierce had absolutely no idea what he was doing with his shiny new toy. If it'd been Zola that remained in charge of him, he might never have remembered Steve and he'd still be in cryo or still killing innocent people who did nothing wrong but to be a nuisance to Hydra.

The thought made him very unhappy. If he didn't have to focus on getting them safely to Kiev, it might've even made him have a panic attack.

"Isn't Zola dead, though?" Tony asked.

"He is now," Steve said. "He was living as a computer for awhile, but SHIELD sacrificed him to kill Nat and I."

_Two targets, level six. They already cost me Zola._ That conversation- entirely one-sided, Bucky remembered doing his usual silent routine while getting those orders -came floating back to him. That's right, Zola was dead, and good riddance. So there was no chance of the damn lunatic mucking in Bucky's head anymore. That relaxed his pulled-tight nerves a bit.

Tony's voice interrupted his thoughts. "-idiots. I saw a lot of those news reports going on around that time. I'm not surprised you survived a missile strike. I don't know why they bothered."

"Kinda just as glad," Steve said. "When that failed, they decided to send Bucky after us. If they hadn't pulled him out of stasis to hunt us down, things would be a lot different right now."

Bucky shot a glance up at Steve. "We try not to think about that," he said in a flat monotone. It wasn't anything against Tony, Tony had done a magnificent job on Bucky's arm and was now out of retirement to make sure the Russian rebels didn't chase them off the Hydra base again, but Bucky just had a problem being talkative around people who weren't Steve. He was trying to change that, mostly for Steve's sake, but it was a hard old habit to break.

Tony studied Bucky long enough that Bucky had to turn his head to look at him. "What?"

"So what do I have to say to get you to be more than monosyllabic?" Tony said.

"Pray," Bucky said.

"Sorry, atheist."

"Then keep waiting."

Tony looked disappointed. "That's no fun. Come on, surely you have some subject that you get excited about. Something that makes you stop being so silent. Because seriously, I'm starting to suspect I'm sitting next to a robot."

Steve started to reply on Bucky's behalf, but Bucky held up a hand, stopping him. "Just a cyborg," he told Tony. "Thank you for fixing my arm. But don't expect a lot of conversation. I lost the ability of common civility."

"In other words, you're an asshole," Steve said. "Which I've known since we were kids."

"You know, this is why I don't talk much around others," Bucky said. "You start trying to bring out Story Time whenever I say something."

"This is the most I've heard you say in the past week," Tony said. "It's a miracle. I'm sitting in the presence of an honest-to-god miracle."

Bucky took a very deep, very exasperated breath. "And you called me the asshole, Steve."

"I never said Tony wasn't worse," Steve said. "In fact, I warned you before we left D.C. that he had a mouth on him."

"Such sweet nothings," Tony said. "Ease off, Cap, your boyfriend here might get jealous."

Bucky resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Obviously, the running joke had just been picked up by Tony and Bucky had the feeling that they'd never get him off it short of bodily harm and Bucky didn't care enough to bother. The media already speculated, at least Tony knew better than to actually believe it.

"Tony, I swear to god, if you keep making that joke-"

"It's fine, Steve," Bucky interrupted. "At least he knows it's not true."

Steve sighed. "Okay, okay, fine."

"Nothing fazes you, does it?" Tony demanded, staring at Bucky.

Bucky frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

"You don't protest to being called names, you don't react to accusations of playing tongue hockey with your best friend, you just roll with the punches."

"I just don't let other peoples' opinions matter," Bucky said. "I'm a mercenary and former assassin among a few things. You learn to just do your job and ignore the rest of the world."

"Thus, your trail of destruction wherever you go," Tony said. "If the rest of the world doesn't matter, why should a little collateral damage bother you?"

Steve seemed to be letting Bucky and Tony have this conversation without his own input, which annoyed Bucky slightly. He was so used to Steve diverting attention off him that the lack of help was obnoxious. He'd have to hang Steve by his toes later.

"That's not quite the reason," he said.

"Then what is?" Tony asked.

Why was Tony so good at asking all the questions Bucky had to think about to answer? That was getting old. He couldn't answer right away, didn't want to, didn't know how. "You left damage in New York. Mostly caused by the aliens, but you added to it."

"Fair enough, I did. Caused a bit myself in the name of protecting someone. Bad guys make things messy."

"Exactly. Damage to buildings can be fixed. Expensive, but fixable. People dying can't be fixed."

"Says the ninety-seven year old man back from the dead."

"I was never dead, I was presumed dead," Bucky pointed out.

"Big difference," Tony said, and Bucky couldn't tell if that was agreement or sarcasm or both. "Okay, I get the point. Like I said, I've caused some damage myself. But you spent years causing damage while trying to kill people, rather than defend them."

Bucky really wished Steve would speak up and take over this conversation. Tony was rankling him, and his first inclination was to fling him out of the plane, followed very quickly by just shutting Tony out and down. He was tempted to do just that; he didn't feel he had to justify his time with Hydra to anyone but himself and Steve, but even though neither he nor Steve would ever tell Tony that both his father and Nick Fury were victims of Hydra's Winter Soldier, it made him feel a bit obligated to at least put in a token protest to that statement.

"Would you want to be held accountable for doing something you had no control over?"

Tony studied him. "Is that your only defense?"

"It's the only one I need."

Apparently, that didn't warrant an immediate response. Tony looked back out the window, still half-turned in his seat. "Well, I didn't hold Barton accountable for working for Loki, I'd be a hypocrite to hold you accountable." He glanced up at Steve. "Besides, this one's caused more damage than any of us."

"When?" Steve sounded indignant. Bucky didn't have to turn in his seat to see Steve's expression, he was familiar enough with that tone of voice to take a good guess at the expression that went with it.

"Three wrecked helicarriers in the Potomac, Cap."

"Three wrecked _Hydra_ helicarriers bent on destroying twenty million people, full of hundreds of Hydra agents who would have no qualms about putting a gun to the world's head and calling it safety."

"Splitting hairs."

"Tony? Enough. You're not accomplishing anything here."

Tony shrugged. "I like debates about morality with fellow superheroes. It's fascinating. Besides, you're funny when you get angry. Dunno about tall, dark and silent over here."

Bucky didn't dignify that.

By the time they got to Kiev, both Bucky and Steve had suited up and Tony had pretended to fly the craft successfully by trying to toss them around a bit. That ended when Steve gave Tony's shoulder a grip that looked like it hurt. With the way Tony squawked, it sounded like it, too.

"So where are we in relation to the base?" Tony asked once they'd landed.

Since the plane lacked a proper display, Bucky grabbed his tablet and pulled out a display of the city. "We're about a mile away," he said, zooming on their location. He scrolled the image further east. "The base is about here. We suspect the Russians have found it, because we ran into them about a half mile from here. This is the best landing spot between here and there that wouldn't get the plane hijacked."

"Is that the tablet I made you?" Tony asked, studying the map.

"Yes."

"Good, glad it's useful. I don't remember programming all this in, though."

"I played with it a bit," Bucky admitted.

Tony patted his shoulder, which caused Bucky to eye that hand like he might have to bite it if it didn't get off of his person in three seconds or less. Tony ignored that. "I'm impressed. I'm also impressed that you didn't turn this over to Cap to do because it involves talking."

His stare went from Tony's hand, which didn't seem inclined to move, to Tony's face. To avoid doing or saying something rash, he grabbed his mask and pulled it on.

"Bucky doesn't let me touch his tablet," Steve said, pulling on his helmet. "He seems to think I'll break it."

Bucky set the tablet down and got up. "Not true. I know you're good with technology."

"He is?" Tony looked over at Bucky, surprise on his face for a few seconds before the Iron Man suit he'd released from the suitcase wrapped itself around him and covered his face with the face plate.

"He learns quick," Bucky said. "He's always been like that."

"Forgive my generational prejudice, then," Tony said, although his tone was a bit flippant, so Bucky wasn't sure how sincere that was. Probably sincere enough, just peppered with Tony's unique attitude about everything. "Let's get moving, we have Russians to teach to play nice. JARVIS? Close up the plane while we're away."

The three walked as inconspicuously as three guys in uniforms of varying ridiculousness could down the streets towards where the Russian forces had set up camp. Bucky hadn't noticed if they'd managed to raid the Hydra base's weapons cache, if there was anything there left to raid to begin with, but they certainly had plenty of their own firepower, and while they were still theoretically a half mile off, his nerves were pulled tight with expectation of something going off. Every sense was tuned in to being aware of potential threats. The area was devoid of civilians, most probably in safer locations elsewhere in the city. When your city has been invaded by a foreign force, you don't tend to stick near their front lines.

"Okay, it's been almost a half mile," Steve said after they'd traveled a ways. "Tony, fly ahead, keep low, scout the area for us."

"Thanks for volunteering me, Cap," Tony said, but still fired up the suit's propulsion system and flew ahead.

"We were farther out last time," Steve noted to Bucky, shield up and at the ready.

Bucky backed towards Steve, his weapon held loosely in his hands, finger sitting on the finger guard. "They've retreated. Probably to regroup after the scare we gave them earlier."

"Scared of two men. Doesn't say much about them."

"Two super soldiers against overarmed civilian militia," Bucky pointed out. "Not a difficult task."

A handful of explosions and a lot of gunfire cut off their conversation seconds before Tony's voice came over their ear pieces. "Okay, old guys, I found them. Get in here and help me out."

"On our way," Steve said, then took off at a run, Bucky on his heels. The general sounds of engagement grew louder as they got closer, until they were ducking behind building corners to avoid getting shot. Tony was flying through it all as if he'd spent his life dodging bullets, although Bucky could hear some ricocheting off the suit. Whatever it was made of had impressive armor, but that'd probably scratch the paint job some.

"Come on, you two," Tony said, turning on his back and using the flight stabilizers in his hands to fire an energy blast at someone with a poorly designed grenade launcher. Bucky reconsidered the idea that they'd gotten their hands on Hydra technology; Hydra would be embarrassed to have made something that sloppy. "Guns blazing, don't hide behind buildings!"

Steve left cover first, shield out and deflecting bullets, and occasionally giving a militia member that got too close a concussion. "We don't call them guns in the military, Tony," he said, and Bucky couldn't help but want to laugh a bit.

He didn't, focused on sniping enemy combatants with his weapon. It wasn't quite the level of weapon he was used to, not nearly as good as his Hydra weapons had been, but hopefully, there'd be something he could run off with to properly rearm himself. He'd spent the last several jobs relying mostly on his hand to hand skills, which had given Steve a few grey hairs with close calls that could've been better resolved with long range attacks rather than what could be accomplished with a combat knife.

"Why not?" Tony demanded, landing and firing tiny heat-seeking missiles from his shoulders.

"This is my weapon, this is my gun. One is for fighting, one is for fun," Bucky said in complete deadpan as he ran out of cover into the fray. His metal arm whined, as his fist shot out and connected soundly with a combatant's face, breaking several things from the sounds of it. The man staggered back, and Bucky fired one round into his head before grabbing the next man and snapping his neck.

"Is everything a dick joke in the military?"

Steve, who was, as usual, less focused on killing his opponents as much as disabling them, something Bucky didn't approve of, swung his shield out and knocked aside an attacker. "Yes."

"I'm looking at you in a whole new light, Cap."

Bucky confiscated a longer-range weapon with more explosive power than the scoped semi he'd been using, hooking that weapon to his back before turning and providing a bit of cover fire for Tony, who'd taken off again and was dodging anti-aircraft artillery, turning and knocking some shots out of the sky entirely.

The rooftop the arty was set up on exploded when Bucky fired a shot at it, and a couple of men screamed as they fell off the roof to messy and unpleasant deaths.

"Thanks, Angel!" Tony said.

"Angel?" Bucky couldn't help it, he usually didn't talk much when focused on fighting, but that was weird enough to warrant breaking his usual silence.

"Yeah, Buffy's boyfriend. Tall, dark, broody."

"Who?"

"Tony, make sense," Steve said. Bucky glanced over where he was, keeping an eye on his partner. Steve didn't seem to be having any trouble, flinging a stolen grenade at incoming soldiers. He had to admit, this was a lot easier with Tony taking out the rooftop threats. If they had more room and weapons to work with, Bucky could've sniped them for Steve, but they had a distinct lack of either of those.

"That does it, I'm introducing you two to Joss Whedon's wonderful world of creative works. We'll ignore Dollhouse, though."

Bucky tossed his stolen weapon aside; it'd only had two grenades in the launcher under the barrel, and the magazine was empty and there was no sign of replacement ammunition. Damn.

It didn't matter much at that point, though. The block had gone almost eerily quiet of any sign of life.

"Well, I see a lot of bodies, but this was easier than Hammer's droids," Tony said. He landed on the street as Bucky and Steve approached him, regrouping and watching around for signs of more threats.

"They were Russian milita, not military proper," Steve pointed out. "This wasn't an army, just a bunch of guys with big weapons."

"They tore you two up, though."

"There used to be more of them," Bucky said blandly.

Tony turned his head to look at Bucky. "How many more?"

"About three times more," Steve said. "We were slacking."

"You two frighten me."

Steve chuckled. "Just think, if we'd had Bruce along, this would've gone even faster."

"If we'd had Bruce along, the city would be gone," Tony said. "Which way from here?"

Bucky looked around, getting his bearings and aligning his internal compass before pointing down a street to their side. "That way. It's squat building that barely stands a story tall. Almost all of the complex was underground."

Tony was apparently insistent on not letting that last quarter mile be spent in silence. "How do you know what it looks like, if it's underground?" he asked, his tone suggesting something flippant was about to come next, rather than the question being a real question. "They didn't put you on a leash and take you out for walkies, did they?"

Bucky wanted to strangle him, but he had a feeling that as long as Tony was in the suit, that wouldn't work so well. He wished they were still on the plane so he could fling him out the back doors. "I know what it looks like because they made sure I did," he snapped. "I know what all the bases in the States look like, too. It was a safety precaution."

"Did they program that information in, or did they make you study pictures?"

That sounded like a sincere question, so Bucky's ire backed off a bit. "Programmed."

"Efficient machines," Tony said, sounding genuinely impressed. "Hydra's making me feel sicker by the moment."

"Why, because they make quality technology?" Okay, so it came out a bit snarkier than he'd intended. Tony pushed his buttons enough to shake him out of his silent treatment.

"No, because they used that technology on my friend," Tony said. "I thought my company was despicable for selling our weapons under the table to anyone with money, but at least we never did human experimentation."

Bucky paused in his footsteps, staring at Tony's back. That was an entirely unexpected answer, and even though Tony had included him in a vague sort of way as his friend with Steve, that was the first time he'd singled Bucky out with that term. Bucky had no idea how to react to that. Other than Steve, friends were something that he just didn't have.

Tony stopped and looked back at him, Steve stopping next to him. "What?"

Bucky shook his head. "Nothing. Thought I heard something." He quickly started moving again, feeling flustered. But while he was making himself too focused on the job to pay attention to it, a part of him wanted to smile until his face cracked.

Just as Bucky remembered, the Hydra base was still in place, looking run down and derelict. Ivy grew on the concrete walls and the front doors were barred and the whole grounds just looked old and tired and ready for someone to come along with a wrecking ball, assuming anyone remembered it was there long enough to do it.

"Squat, parts of it don't even hit a story tall, and old." Tony studied the building, then looked at Steve and Bucky. "Looks like we found our place."

He and Steve started forward, and Bucky swallowed back the rising panic as he made his feet move even though they wanted to stick themselves to the ground. Being inside didn't help anything. The outside was something he'd never personally seen, but the inside was familiar and every further step into it was like walking backwards into a nightmare.

"Bucky, when did this place get shut down?" Steve asked as they explored. Lights that probably hadn't turned on in decades lit up as they moved. Old computers sat lifeless, and in some rooms, desks were aligned in not so neat orders. It was clear the place was empty.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I got sent to the US about ten years after being here. It was still operational when I left."

"Judging by the computers, I'd say it got abandoned in the mid seventies," Tony said, looking around. "I don't see things like this outside of a museum. JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Are you picking up on any more sign of life than we are?"

"I register no heat signals, sir," JARVIS said.

"Which means nothing if they have a set up like Zola had," Steve said. "I don't see nearly enough computers, but you never know."

Bucky stayed silent, doing his best to focus and not start taking nonconsensual trips down memory lane into 'curl up in a ball in the corner sobbing like a little girl for the bad people to go away' land. It was harder than most people might think.

Nothing indicated life. Tony tested the computers, found a terminal and after some fiddling around with the old technology, decided there was nothing interesting to be had there, including no data records of the Winter Soldier. "Looks like that paper file is the only thing they had here on him," Tony said. "We'll have to see if there's anything in the American bases, but I have a feeling we won't find anything there. Natasha dumped everything Hydra had in-country on the internet, and I haven't heard anything about those particular records being in that. Bucky?" It took Tony repeating his name before he could give Tony enough attention to reply with a distracted 'yeah?' "When did you say you were shipped to the US?"

Bucky didn't answer at first, lost somewhere between trying to remember the answer, and fighting off the urge to puke. "It was the fifties. I was in cryo at the time, I can't get more specific."

"Mm. These computers are from after you shipped out, and I'm not finding any evidence of them digitalizing what Natasha gave to Cap. Looks like you get to keep your anonymity."

"Are you going to upload what _is_ here?" Steve asked, looking over Tony's shoulder at the old console.

"I'm downloading it to JARVIS right now, Cap," Tony said. "Give me a few minutes, this technology's older than we're used to working with."

They kept talking, but Bucky stopped listening, didn't hear them past the screaming in his head that started drowning out everything as he noticed in a connecting room the old cryo unit. The screaming tapered off to a white noise. He couldn't even think, and he noticed when his lungs started burning that he'd stopped breathing, too.

"Bucky?" Steve's voice sounded like it came down from a long tunnel, and there was a train coming up behind him. A hand on his flesh shoulder startled Bucky, and he pulled away, turning and automatically reaching for his knife, until he registered it was Steve. He stayed rooted to the spot.

"Let's get him out of here," Tony said, walking over. "We've raided the place, and he needs out of here before he really loses his head."

Normally, Bucky would've done something horrible on purpose to Tony for that statement, as if Bucky weren't standing right there, but the rising panic attack that he was desperately trying to shut up before anyone saw it kept his words safely behind a mental block.

Steve looked past him into the room, then glanced at Tony. "It's the cryo chamber."

Tony half leaned over to look around Bucky. "Damn. Come on, Bucky, we're taking you out of here. You're going down paths we can't follow you."

Bucky started to look behind him, but someone- Steve, he realized after a second of trying to process anything past the blank, numb feeling that had taken over his brain -grabbed his chin and turned his head away. "Bucky, look at me." It took a second before his eyes focused on Steve's face. "Don't go down that way. You're not back there. Come on, let's get out of here and let this place rot."

Steve. Steve wasn't back there. Hydra was. If Steve was there, Hydra wasn't. Bucky started repeating that little mantra until his nerves relaxed and he felt the numb feeling go away. It was only through sheer willpower that he kept from shaking with adrenaline release.

"I'm fine," he said, pulling out of Steve's grip and feeling the burn of humiliation in his face. He rarely let even Steve see him when something pulled him back into the past, but not only was his best friend there, but Tony, too. If it wouldn't have just added to his embarrassment, he'd be tempted to run out and puke in the bushes.

He refused to look at either of his friends as they left, but the possibility of leftover militia being in the area gave him a bit of a reprieve from having to face them since all three of them were focused on not getting killed. It gave him something to focus on and distract him from the mental garbage the base had drudged up until it was safely walled in the back of his brain where it typically didn't bother him.

"You going to be okay to fly, Bucky?" Steve asked as they got to the plane.

"I told you, I'm fine," he snapped, then clenched his jaw, glad for the mask that hid the silent swearing he was doing about then. He'd gotten into arguments with Steve before, but even with his head turned a hundred and forty-five degrees off bubble, he could tell that his tone had been a bit unnecessary. "I'm fine," he repeated, this time in his flat tone he tended to use when talking to just about anybody but Steve.

That wasn't much better.

Neither Steve nor Tony pushed the issue though, but at the same time, neither spoke at all, making Bucky feel like the uncomfortable center of attention. He forced himself to ignore their silence, staying just as quiet and running through pre-flight checks while Tony dismantled the suit and Steve stashed the shield and his helmet in a place where the inertia of flight wouldn't make them go flying.

For some reason, it was Tony that flopped into the co-pilot's seat. "Want me to fly?"

"After your earlier demonstration, no," Bucky said.

Tony smirked. "I can fly just fine. I was messing with you two. Mostly Cap. He's fun to heckle."

"Tony, fly off a cliff," Steve grumbled at him, leaning on the seats behind them.

Tony looked up at him. "I've done that. Doesn't do what you want it to do."

"Then play in traffic."

"Done that too. Still doesn't make me erupt into the flames I currently see in your eyes."

Steve gave Tony one of those looks that Bucky was very familiar with, one that said Steve was about to take Tony by the shoulders and shake him until the jackass fell out. "You know what? I'm going to catch a nap back here. Try to not be a smartass for awhile."

"I'd break out in a rash if I do that!" Tony called back as Steve turned away without bothering to answer that.

Bucky could believe that.

Time passed in silence, Steve sleeping in back and Tony mercifully didn't say anything, but the Ukraine was a long way from the west coast of America, and eventually, Tony inevitably spoke up. "Still with us?"

Bucky almost didn't bother answering. "I told you, I'm fine."

"Right, and I'm not a genius. Honestly? Been there, done that. I had to have a therapist and medicine to get over it, and you've seen more than I have. I realize those options are out, but the next best thing is talking to friends. Cap's asleep, so that leaves me."

"And what are we supposed to talk about?"

"How long were you there? Ten years, you said?"

"That's right." Bucky figured he'd humor Tony for the moment, since he had a feeling Tony wouldn't let the subject go if he ignored him.

"And most of that was spent in that cryo chamber?"

There was another one of those questions Tony liked to ask that Bucky didn't like answering. "Off and on."

"What were they doing to you between times in the fridge?"

Bucky didn't know what to say to that. Some of it was hazy, a lot of it was crystal clear and things he didn't want to talk about to anyone, not even Steve. Tony was endearing in a completely stupid way, but not _that_ damn endearing. "Don't remember."

"And that's not true," Tony said without missing a beat.

"How do you know?"

Tony half turned in his seat and glanced towards the back. Steve wasn't speaking up, so Bucky assumed that he was either asleep still, or being an asshole. For his sake, he'd better have been sleeping.

"Because I'm good at reading people," Tony said, turning back to face Bucky. "And you answered too fast. Look, I'm not going to force the gory details out of you, but I recognize what I saw today. You nearly had a panic attack meltdown on us. Again, been there, done that. I realize you come from the psychiatric dark ages, but I promise, talking about it helps. If you don't wanna talk to me, fine, but at least talk to Cap. He's worried. Hell, _I'm_ worried. This isn't something you have to carry alone."

Giving up entirely, Bucky decided he wasn't going to get away with the silent treatment without Tony giving him another speech or personal question, and after the long day, Bucky wasn't really up for listening to it for the whole trip. "I know what you're trying to do, but I don't need it."

"All right, backing off."

Bucky heard the 'for the moment' in that, but felt just too mentally exhausted to do anything but hope that 'for the moment' never came to pass and Tony would just fall asleep.

No such luck. "How long have you and Cap been friends?"

At least it wasn't one of those questions. "I met him in grade school. So about ninety years." Seventy of those didn't really count, they were both iced for most of that.

Tony nodded, glancing back again to where Steve was dozing. "Long time. I doubt I'll live that long, but it must be nice to have a friend that knows you that well. I never really had friends. Got Bruce and you and Cap. And Pepper, of course, but she and I left the realm of friendship behind a bit ago."

"That's all?"

"Most of the people I trusted when I was still in the industry turned their backs on me when I changed the company's focus. One even had me kidnapped and held for ransom by a terrorist group."

"That doesn't mean they were friends," Bucky said.

"True," Tony said. "I'd be a liar if I didn't say I had some, but I'm too famous for most people to see beyond the suit and company."

"Steve has always had the same problem. In one way or another."

Tony looked surprised. "He was famous before the Captain America shtick?"

"No, but nobody wanted to be the ninety pound asthmatic's friend." Which had always pissed Bucky off, but he couldn't help people's attitudes and had simply done what he could to be a good enough best friend to make up for it.

Tony looked out the window. "People judge by the stupidest things. Kinda sad, really. So what about you? Cap's told me you used to be pretty good with people."

"That was a long time ago," Bucky said somewhat evasively. It was an innocent enough conversation, but talking with Tony was burning up energy he would rather give to flying without crashing them into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Maybe, but you didn't answer me. Cap's said you were good with women."

"Again, that was a long time ago." Bucky wasn't even sure why Tony cared about that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know how _that_ subject had come up between Steve and Tony in the first place. It seemed like a weird topic for them to be discussing.

Tony gave him a strange look. "What, you magically forgot how to be?"

Bucky sighed. "People change." Once again, he really wondered why this was even a subject of discussion. He was pretty sure that, especially after that humiliating display at the Hydra base, it should be obvious that he was far too messed up in the head to try to get involved with anyone. He didn't even feel he should try to make another friend outside of Steve, because only Steve really understood. But Tony knew the history, and was intent on making friends with him. Bucky had to admit it made him happy, but Tony was also very irritating and grating on Bucky's nerves.

From what Steve had said, that was normal Tony.

Tony raised his eyebrows. "You know I was joking when I called you Cap's boyfriend, I didn't mean to step on toes if-"

"Shut up," Bucky growled. "Even if _either_ of us went that way, our friendship is too damn important to screw up with that."

"I figured."

Bucky finally turned his head to stare incredulously at Tony. "Then why the hell did you even bring it up?"

"To get a reaction," Tony said. "Getting one out of you is kinda difficult sometimes."

"So you're baiting me to get me angry. Not exactly what friends do."

"So we _are_ friends, then." Tony held out his hands. "Thank you, getting that out of you was like pulling teeth."

Bucky stared. He'd just been played. "You are a manipulative bastard."

Tony reached over and patted Bucky's shoulder. "Never said I wasn't." He smiled. "So. Friend. Feeling any better from Kiev? You seem in a talkative enough mood now."

He'd been played twice over. Bucky didn't know if he wanted to smack Tony or smile stupidly. He settled for both, the smile hiding behind the mask he still had on. He tried to sound less interested in the conversation than he really was. "I told you, I'm fine."

"You're not, but you're doing better than you were a few minutes ago," Tony said. "Told you talking with friends helps." Then he turned in his seat, kicking his feet up on the console. Bucky sincerely hoped that wouldn't send them in a nose dive. "But no, back to the subject of girls, you have no desire to find someone special?"

Great, this again. It was better than some subjects he could bring up, though. "No."

"Don't like settling?"

"Let me explain something before you try to start hooking me up on dates, Tony," Bucky said, wanting to stop the conversation. "One, I don't want to explain to anyone why I'm dead. For another, even when I _was_ interested, no, I didn't want to settle."

"A ladies' man?" Tony had such a shit-eating grin that Bucky wondered how his face didn't stick that way.

Of course, for once that day, Bucky felt truly amused. His issues aside, he _did_ still appreciate the female form and he usually avoided the subject with Steve. "At one time. Then I joined the army and I got pulled out of the scene."

"Yeah, but women like a man in uniform."

"That only works before deployment."

"What about leave?"

Bucky shook his head. "Fighting Hydra didn't give us much time to take leave. And the only woman around while we were deployed was Peggy and she outright ignored me."

"I can't imagine why."

"In case you don't recognize that name, that was Steve's girl."

"Oh! Her." Tony made a face of acknowledgement. "Okay, so it'd be an asshole move to hit on your best friend's girl."

"That's a bit of an understatement."

"I'm master of those." Tony went quiet for a few minutes. "What about Cap? He ever try finding someone? Or are you two going to be bachelors-in-arms for the rest of your lives?"

There was a subject he didn't like, thus why he rarely brought women up around Steve. "He's had a few dates, but nothing's stuck." He honestly worried about what would happen if Steve _did_ find someone. It'd rattle up the household dynamic something awful, and Bucky wasn't sure he was ready for that, or if he'd ever be. He kept that to himself, though, not wanting to make Steve feel like he couldn't pursue something that'd make him happy.

"You ever think it's not stuck because he doesn't want it to? You'd take a lot of explaining."

"If that's true, I'm killing him, then setting him up with a dating service," Bucky said, for the first time glancing back into the back. Steve was asleep sitting up, buckled into a passenger seat to keep from falling over.

"Are you two incapable of being selfish?" Tony asked, tone somewhere between playful and genuinely consternated.

"No."

"I meant in regards to each other."

"In that case, yes."

Tony shook his head. "You two frighten me." He glanced towards the back. "Hear that, Cap?"

"I heard," Steve said.

Bucky turned in his seat so fast that he came close to knocking them into a spin. "How long have you been awake?"

Steve cracked one eye open. "Don't crash us, Bucky. I never fell asleep, I was just resting." He sat forward, unbuckling. "Thanks, Tony. Take over. Bucky, get some rest."

Bucky turned back around in his seat, refusing to move. "I am fine to fly," he snarled.

"Bucky? Get back here. Let Tony fly."

Bucky clenched his teeth. "Is that an order, Captain?"

He could hear Steve sigh. "Oh, for- Bucky, seriously, just let Tony fly. Come back here."

He didn't want to. He felt petulant, contrary, and outright angry at Steve. But he also knew that when Steve put his foot down, it was hard to say no unless Steve was being stupid about it. They tended to bully each other around and keep talking until the stupid fell out, but Steve wasn't being stupid. If anyone was, it was probably Bucky, which meant that with a noise of disgust, he got up and let Tony take over the pilot's seat and went to the back where Steve was. He sat down near, but not next to, Steve and turned on his silent treatment stare on the inside wall in front of him instead of paying attention to Steve.

Steve had no obvious intention of letting Bucky shut him down. "Okay, you're angry."

Trying to use the silent treatment on Steve never worked, partly because Steve had the patience of a stone and partly because Bucky was too used to Steve to successfully pull that off. "How long were you going to make me keep up that conversation?" he demanded in a hushed voice. "You know I don't like talking to people, and I _really_ hate being manipulated."

"I know," Steve said. "But I wasn't sure what else to do. You didn't even notice Tony and I setting this up on the way back to the plane. You needed to talk and you never talk to me."

Bucky had to admit, he hadn't noticed them even saying anything that whole time. "That doesn't change the fact that you let him manipulate me. In fact, you planned it, which is even worse."

Steve put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Bucky? Tony's a friend. And he's not as close to you and the situation as I am, he was the only one who had a chance of getting you to talk about _anything._ There's a reason for the saying about forests and trees."

Bucky yanked his shoulder away, but said nothing in argument. Steve may have a valid point, but so did Bucky. Steve outright planned for someone to manipulate Bucky into doing something he didn't want to do. Of all the people who should understand why Bucky would feel upset about that, it should be Steve.

Silence passed, Bucky feeling too angry and betrayed for reason, and Steve doing that 'patient as a stone' trick again. Bucky refused to even look at Steve, even though the argument was quickly tying his stomach into knots. He and Steve had argued before, usually over dumb things, but an outright feelings hurt fight? It wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't exactly common, and both of them hated it every time it happened.

"I'm sorry," Steve finally said. Bucky didn't give him acknowledgement, working on keeping himself from getting so angry that he started crying. "It was a bad way to handle it," Steve continued despite Bucky ignoring him. "And I won't do it again. You're right, it was underhanded. But I honestly don't know how to help you."

"I don't _need_ help," Bucky snapped, taking deep, measured breaths to rein in his temper.

"And we both know that's not true," Steve said gently. "I'm not asking you to go to Sam's VA meetings and spit out your guts in front of a bunch of strangers. I'm not even asking you to talk to Sam privately. I know you don't feel comfortable with him, and quite frankly, I know asking you to would be an exercise in futility. But you won't talk to me. And I don't entirely know why. We used to tell each other everything."

Bucky debated how to answer that, if he even should. His anger told him to let Steve be hurt and not get an reply of some sort, but the rest of him said bollocks to that and demanded _something_ out of him. He thought for a moment how to spit out a truth that didn't say much. He glanced towards the front where Tony either couldn't hear them, or was politely ignoring them, then looked back at Steve pointedly.

Steve picked up on the hint. "All right," he said. "I can wait."

Mercifully, the flight went quietly after that. Bucky found himself dozing off a couple times, mostly only noticing when Steve would poke his cheek to wake him up because he'd fallen over onto Steve's shoulder. He'd mumble an apology and sit back up, only to doze back off and do it again. Steve eventually gave up.

"Hey, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dangerous, wake up," Tony's voice cut through the haze of a sleep that was far too light to be restful, and just deep enough to have made the trip go by quickly.

Bucky sat ramrod straight, looking around with an artificial awakeness brought on by adrenaline. After a second of seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he yawned, wanting to go back to sleep. He was in a daze the whole way from the airfield to Tony's home, where he insisted Steve and Bucky stay the night since both were tired and in absolutely no condition to travel back to D.C. For all his stubbornness, Bucky actually wanted to a lodge a protest, but when his jaw popped with a yawn, he surrendered the point without bringing it up, and all but sleepwalked to the guest room.

Since Steve was either slow to follow, or not following at all, Bucky took advantage of that fact to claim the floor, so tired he didn't notice that he'd laid down on his left side, which was always uncomfortable with the unforgiving metal of his arm digging into his side. Deciding he was too tired to care, he stayed where he was, trying to drift back off.

He'd been halfway to sleeping with something soft with a decent weight to it landed on his head. He yelped, flinging it off and stumbling to his feet with a bit less grace than he usually did, left fist raised to hit whatever threat just dropped on him.

Steve held up his hands defensively. "Easy, Bucky, it's just me."

It took a second to actually register that. After an emotionally and physically exhausting trip, he wasn't precisely running on all six cylinders. After his brain had kicked in, he dropped his arm with a grumpy look on his face. "Do I drop things on you while you sleep?" he snapped."What was that, anyway?" He looked around, gaze landing on a couch cushion next to him. On the bed were more. "Why did you steal Tony and Pepper's couch cushions?"

"Just like when were kids," Steve said.

"Oh for chrissakes, Steve, we're too old for that."

Steve ignored him, arranging the cushions into two rough beds side by side. "We were too old when my mom died, and yet you made me do it," he said. "We're too old now, and yet I'm making you do it. Shut up and lay down. And take the other side, you were sleeping on your bad side."

Bucky was tired enough that an argument was not forthcoming in his brain, so with another jaw-popping yawn, he shuffled around the cushions to the other side. "Fine, you win." Without another word, he flopped down on the cushions. He heard Steve settling down next to him. "You want me to talk now, don't you?" Bucky said in a mumble, eyes closed.

"You're falling asleep, I think you're going to slur out something nonsensical."

Bucky opened both eyes just enough to glare at Steve. "I would not."

"So you're saying you're awake enough to talk?" Steve looked either amused or completely serious and Bucky couldn't honestly tell which.

"Meh. Ask a question. I don't guarantee an answer."

"Fair enough. Why won't you talk to me?"

Bucky almost replied with 'I am now, aren't I?' but that wasn't exactly an answer to what Steve meant. "It's just going to piss you off," he said. A lame excuse, but it was as good as any.

Steve propped himself up on his elbow. "Bucky, I've been prepared for that from the start. If I get that angry, I can always decimate a few innocent punching bags. Not quite as good as the real thing, but it works."

Bucky searched for another excuse that didn't entirely amount to 'I don't want to you can't make me lalalalalala I can't hear you.' "I wasn't lying when I said I don't remember a lot of it."

"I don't doubt that, Bucky. I saw the file, you were high on drugs most of the time."

"Then why the hell are you asking me? You probably know more about what happened than I do."

"Because I'm not the one that locks myself in the bathroom to have anxiety attacks over it."

Bucky wanted to shrink down until he couldn't be seen anymore. "You knew about that?"

Steve sighed. "You really thought I wouldn't notice?"

"I could hope."

"I'm kinda hurt you thought I'd be that oblivious to something bothering you," Steve said, which only made Bucky wither some more. "Look, I'm not asking you to tell me every little thing that you might remember. But it'd be nice if you'd stop shutting me out when you need help."

Feeling backed into a corner, Bucky scowled. "And what are you supposed to do to help? Pet my hair and whisper sweet nothings?"

Steve didn't seem bothered by Bucky's defensive statement. "Well, I suppose if that's the only thing that works, but no, it wasn't my first thought."

Bucky felt a bit defeated. "You know, I see why Tony is frightened by us."

Steve grinned. "You'd do the same for me, and then we'd be all weird and awkward after for awhile."

"Again, with the frightening thing."

"Did you hear a denial in that?"

Bucky's tired brain took a second to process that. "Okay, no."

"Tell me honestly, Bucky," Steve said. "Are you feeling any better from earlier?"

"That was almost half a day ago and I've spent a lot of that time asleep. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good." Steve patted Bucky's shoulder, even though that was kind of pointless since that was his metal arm. But Bucky supposed it was the thought that counted. "Get some sleep. But do me a favor?"

"Hm?"

"Stop locking yourself up in the bathroom when you need help. I can't do anything when you do that."

"I promise nothing."

"Bucky."

That tone told Bucky right there that he wasn't going to get to sleep until he gave Steve an answer he wanted. "Fine. I'll try."

Steve settled back down on his cushions. "Close enough. Good night, Bucky."

"Night."

Words were on the tip of Bucky's tongue to say, but Steve had already drifted off, or at least appeared to have. But if Bucky didn't say what he wanted to, he'd never screw up the courage to say it again, so Steve sleeping or not, he blurted it out. "I remember them cutting off the rest of my arm to install the new one. They didn't give me anesthetic." It was only one of a million impressions and feelings Kiev had dredged up, and it was the first one that came to mind.

Steve wasn't as asleep as Bucky thought, quickly lifting his head to stare at Bucky in horror. "What?"

Bucky wasn't inclined to repeat himself, but now that he'd jumped into the water, he kept babbling out something in the hopes of swimming rather than sinking. "It's one of the only clear things I remember there. It's been so long I can't actually remember how much it hurt, but that's the real reason I won't go to a doctor, not just because I'm supposed to be dead." If his brain hadn't just betrayed him and turned off, he probably would've been still talking, turning into absolute nonsense.

A hand reached for his shoulder and Bucky automatically jerked back from it, not looking Steve in the eye, trying to mentally berate himself back into being calm, but it wasn't working. Goddamnit, he'd just had one of these moments, how the hell was he going to handle a second one?

"Bucky, listen to me. Come back." Steve kept talking until the rising anxiety tapered off, leaving Bucky trembling and sick to his stomach. "It's okay," Steve was still saying, and now Bucky registered that Steve had sat up and had one hand on his left shoulder. He couldn't feel it, but the gesture was still comforting.

After a moment, Bucky took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing his eyes. "I'm fine," he said quietly. "I'm fine," he repeated, although at that point, he wasn't really sure if he was talking to Steve or himself.

"Sit up," Steve said.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Not feeling up for further protests, Bucky sat up, crossing his legs and staring down at his mismatched hands in his lap. In his peripheral vision, he saw Steve get up, and before he could wonder where he was going, Steve was sitting down next to him, putting an arm around Bucky's shoulders.

"You're not back there," Steve said. "And nothing like that will ever happen again, I promise you that. Anyone wants to hurt you, they gotta get through me, first."

Bucky sighed, then covered his face with his hands. "This is stupid," he said. "I'm a grown man, I shouldn't be freaking out like a dumb kid."

"Bucky, I've had the same problem sometimes, too. It has nothing to do with age. You went through something awful, it's normal. Like I said, I've had my moments, too. You've just never seen them."

Bucky peeked out from behind his hands, giving Steve a sour look. "And yet you want me to show off all my issues with a capital 'I' to you."

Steve shook his head. "The worst of it was before I got you back, so I did it alone. You don't have to. And besides, it still happens from time to time. You're usually asleep when it does."

"Then wake me up."

"Only if you stop hiding in the bathroom."

"Fine," Bucky said, giving in. "But you'd better damn well start waking me up."

"I will." After another minute of the comfortable and and calming contact, Steve spoke up. "You okay to sleep now?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah, I'll be okay. Get your butt off my cushions so I can lay down."

Steve patted Bucky's shoulder once before moving, crawling back over to his cushions and flopping down. "Get some rest, Bucky."

Bucky curled up on his own cushions. His stomach still felt a bit unpleasant, but the buzzing feeling in his head had disappeared. He watched Steve fuss around a bit to get comfortable before finally settling down. "Thank you," he said, barely above a tired whisper. Now that he was calmer, he was starting to fall back to sleep.

"Any time, Bucky," Steve said around a yawn. "Like you told Tony, we're incapable of being selfish to each other. Try to get some sleep."

Bucky didn't argue, couldn't even spit out another 'good night' before drifting off into a sleep, where for what felt like the first time in ages, he didn't have any nightmares.


End file.
